It’s Rangers 3, Canucks 2, and Ghosts 0 After 54 Years : Stanley Cup finals: New York holds off Vancouver in Game 7. Quinn says he will step down as coach.

NEW YORK —  They shouted it through smiles and tears, in accents that rang of Brooklyn and the Bronx and the place they pronounce “Lawn Guyland.”

The 18,200 fans at Madison Square Garden spoke as one, singing a song they had rehearsed since 1940 but weren’t entitled to perform until Tuesday.

“We won the Cup!”

It was both a declaration and an attempt to convince themselves the New York Rangers’ 3-2 victory in Game 7 over the Vancouver Canucks had really happened and that the Stanley Cup was finally and happily theirs.

“It’s just amazing,” marveled Ranger defenseman Brian Leetch, winner of the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. “It’s amazing that it’s over with and we won our last game of the year.”

They won it, but barely, an appropriately nerve-racking ending for a team that has endured so much misfortune.

A one-goal difference in a seven-game series--and that only thanks to Nathan LaFayette hitting the goalpost with about 6:40 to play and defenseman Kevin Lowe clearing the puck out of danger--was as close as they come. Certainly too close for comfort, too close to be sure of the victory until team captain Mark Messier had the 36-pound Cup in his hands, held high over his head for everyone to see.

“Mark Messier told me this would be the toughest game I’ve ever been part of trying to win, and he underestimated a little bit,” Leetch said.

Then again, Leetch is skeptical of everything. After taking a congratulatory phone call from President Clinton, he asked, “Was that Dana Carvey?”

No, it was the real Clinton, he was assured. And this Cup triumph, the first by the Rangers on home ice, was the real thing, too.

They overcame ghosts and jinxes they inherited and the problems that were of their own making. They overcame the defensive lapses that had plagued them earlier in this series and the loss of their confidence, playing a solid game Tuesday to hold off the onrushing Canucks in the third period.

“To come out on the losing end of a series like this obviously tears your guts out, but my heart is full of pride,” said Pat Quinn, who said he will give up his role as the Canucks’ coach to concentrate on his duties as general manager. “It was a great series. But for a break here or there, but for killing a penalty, the result might have been different.”

Said Trevor Linden, who scored both Canuck goals: “For most players it’s a pretty empty feeling right now. When you’ve got your mind set on something and you don’t get it, it’s tough. We battled hard and came within a goalpost of tying it up. We had absolute confidence we could win.”

The Rangers’ confidence had eroded after they lost Games 5 and 6 and lost their 3-1 series lead. It didn’t return until an impassioned talk by Coach Mike Keenan after Monday’s practice, which Messier called, “probably the most intense, emotional, greatest speech I think I’ve heard in 16 years.”

The exact words mattered less than the show of fire from Keenan, whose dedication was questioned when rumors arose he had agreed to take a job with the Detroit Red Wings.

“We just had to restore the belief and the confidence they had in each other,” said Keenan, whose three previous trips to the finals, twice with the Flyers and once with the Blackhawks, ended in defeat. “Because of the work of Vancouver, that was eroded a little. You have to give (the Canucks) full credit for their play.

“To win in New York City . . . People don’t understand what it takes to win anywhere, but to win in New York City takes every ounce of energy, physical energy, psychological and mental. Everything has to be put into it to accomplish this.”

They accomplished Tuesday’s victory through discipline, backed by timely saves from goaltender Mike Richter.

Leetch, the first American-born player to win the Conn Smythe, scored the game’s first goal and his 11th of the playoffs at 11:02. Put in the clear to the left of Kirk McLean’s net on a pass from Sergei Zubov, he had an eternity to decide where to shoot. Holding onto it in an effort to force McLean to move first, he got the goalie to go down, got lucky when McLean’s legs got tangled with those of Ranger forward Adam Graves, then rifled it over McLean’s upraised left hand.

The fans’ pregame roars, ear-splitting though they had been, were whispers compared to the din caused by Graves’ goal, at 14:45. He was set up alone in the slot by Zubov and finished it off with a wrist shot to McLean’s stick side for his first goal of the finals.

The Canucks cut the lead to 2-1 at 5:21 of the second period, on a splendid short-handed effort by Linden, who came off the bench, broke in alone on Richter and slotted a forehand shot between Richter’s right arm and his body.

“When you’re down, 2-0, after one period, it’s a little tough to come back, but we worked hard,” McLean said. “We gave ourselves every chance.”

The Rangers re-established their two-goal margin at 13:29, on their second power-play goal in three attempts. Messier, who was stationed by the left post, was credited with the goal after a scramble around McLean.

Linden made them sweat at 4:50 of the third period when he converted a goalmouth pass from Cliff Ronning. LaFayette scared them and so did Pavel Bure in the final 30 seconds, but the puck stayed out of the Rangers’ net and the wait was over.

Inside the Garden, the fireworks began. Outside, the celebration began in the form of overturned cars and mayhem whose toll isn’t known. “We had 54 years of history to overcome,” Messier said, “all the talk about ghosts and dragons. As Mike said before the game, you can’t be afraid to slay the dragon.”